Was Our House A Portal?

My childhood house was built in 1959, in a Detroit, Michigan suburb that officially became known as Dearborn Heights. Four years later, in 1963, my family moved in as soon as the house was finished.

I was conceived in this house. When my mother was pregnant with me, she did not like to be in the basement, but she could not understand why. Since the basement had been finished, complete with paneling and a built-in TV and stereo system, the family always ended the day down there.

I'm not sure when the first experiences were witnessed, but my family and visitors alike reported odd occurrences in that house the entire time we lived there. Most experiences happened in the basement, although my sisters, my mother and others reported seeing a green orb or shadow of some kind move through the upstairs hallway on several occasions.

My oldest sister had the most experiences, while I had the fewest. One night while she was babysitting my middle sister and me, she and her friend were downstairs watching TV when they heard the dishwasher upstairs banging open and closed. My other sister and I were both sound asleep at the time and there was no one else in the house.

Other experiences included: several times something that looked like a 4th of July sparkler was seen in the laundry room in the basement, far from any electrical outlet; banging sounds were heard in the basement, most of which (but not all) were centered around my father's darkroom (he'd been an amateur photographer); and voices.

My oldest sister and another of her friends were on their way downstairs when they heard adults having a conversation down there. They confirmed that the TV was off, the stereo was off, and no feasible explanation was ever found.

My mother had experiences. My father had experiences--although he never admitted that until he was in his 70s, and he never said exactly what those experiences had been. The neighbor boys were frightened away one summer day when they entered to water our houseplants while we were on vacation; they never agreed to be alone in that house, ever again.

My oldest sister reported seeing the figure of a man dressed in Victorian Era clothing several times, always upstairs in or near her bedroom.

My own experiences were far more limited than those of the rest of the family. One ongoing activity I can personally attest to involved my dad's darkroom. That room was directly below a bedroom I shared with my middle sister. Whenever my dad was in his darkroom with the door closed, we knew we were not allowed to open the door, but we could talk to him through the furnace vent in our bedroom; it was like our own little intercom. We were also very familiar with the sounds of him working in his darkroom, such as the banging of his metal chemical trays. There were many nights when we were awakened in the night hearing those same sounds...meanwhile, dad was across the hall snoring, everyone was present and accounted for upstairs, the furnace was not running and we did not have central air conditioning. Those "bumps in the night" were never explained.

One particular incident I had involved a Halloween sleepover. I was "camping out" in the basement with several of my friends. During the day, we had turned the furnace room / playroom into a fun house / haunted house. I can't remember everything we set up in that fun house, but I do remember a broom we had hanging from the ceiling. That night, I was awakened by a knocking sound coming from that room. I confirmed all my friends were sleeping and my family members were all still upstairs sleeping. The next day I tested out various scenarios to recreate the sound, and the only thing I came up with was physically moving the broom to make it hit the wall. It took more force than any mere breeze could provide to move the broom and recreate that knocking sound.

At the age of 14, I was "brave" enough to move my bedroom into the basement to gain some privacy--something my oldest sister, to this day, cannot understand. I had no real experiences after that move, but whenever I woke in the middle of the night, I refused to open my eyes to look at anything until I switched a light on--and then I was hesitant to turn it off again. We moved out only a few months afterward.

I often wonder if I was more immune to the occurrences due to having been conceived in that house (?).

I can't find any evidence that the house had been built on the sight of some horrific event; so I find myself wondering if it had been a portal of some kind. Research I have been able to perform on the property has been scarce, and limited to online information. I did discover that the area might have been on the grounds of a military reserve during the Civil War Era, but I've never heard of a Civil War battle being fought in Michigan. I have not learned of any horrific events or accidents in the vicinity. Native American tribes included Chippewa and Ottawa.

I have also discovered that, while all of our immediate neighbors continue to live in their homes nearly forty years later, our home has been resold multiple times. A recent visit with one neighbor had him using both hands to count the names of those who have come and gone since our family left. Whether that means odd bumps in the night continue to occur in that house, making no one want to stick around, remains unknown.

And yes, as children we "did" have a Ouija board; yes, we "did" play with it, always in the basement--after all, that's where the "ghosts" seemed to be; and yes, we did believe we'd made contact with entities--and frequently ended the game by running upstairs screaming, although I can't remember any specifics, such as what names or words the spirits had supposedly given us...